The Prague Anecdote
by ChrysantheC
Summary: After the war ended, with his father gone to Azkaban and his mother falling mad, Draco can't take it anymore and exiles himself to the Muggle world to Czech, oblivating himself and doesn't remember anything that relates to Wizarding London. Harry was taking a vacation from the Auror department and goes to Prague, unexpectedly bumping into a Draco Malfoy who doesn't remember a thing


**Disclaimer: **Sadly, I own nothing except the plot.

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**Prologue**

He can't take it anymore.

Can't take the fact that his father received no mercy – which was to be expected, really – and got himself landed in Azkaban for a lifetime, without anything else but to live a life of doom and rot until the day he finally say goodbye to this world. Can't take the fact that his mother has changed into someone entirely strange to him, to the extent that sometimes he cannot even believe that this woman, who was once elegant and noble, who had let herself fall into the abysses of madness and refused to acknowledge the imprisoning of her husband and the sheer existence of her grown son, was actually someone he had once respected and loved and proud that she was his mother.

Even now, as Draco stood here, pondering why Karma has chosen now to come spinning down onto his family in the most devastating way possible, his mother sat still at her favourite tea table, staring blankly at nowhere and smiling and giggling every now and then at nothing at all. Her teacup was cradled empty in her hand – the house-elves had tried to pour her some tea, but her reaction was so violent, one time even caused the elf helping her accidently splashing some scorching hot tea onto her hand and left the whimpering miserable thing apologising repeatedly, banging its head on the edge of the table, but she hasn't even seem to notice the burn or the furiously stammering thing next to her, until Draco ordered the elves away and left her alone that silence, however eerie and certainly not welcome at all, settled back.

It always had been like this ever since his father was denied to see daylight ever again. Narcissa was calm at first, her composure so steady that you would have thought nothing in the world could have the power to disconcert her. But merely two weeks after hers and Draco's trail were over, Narcissa started to act in strange behaviours that had left Draco wondering if he should call in St. Mungo's to send a therapist to the Manor to check on his mother. But Narcissa had insisted that she was fine. Until the day when Draco realised that she was not fine at all, it was already too late, and his mother had drowned herself in the sea of insanity.

There was nothing Draco could possibly do to regain the mother he had known for all these years. He had tried everything he could think of. Calling in doctors from all areas and mental therapists to talk with his mother, but the effort had been all in vain. Narcissa had become a wreck, locked within her, not talking to anybody and believing that her husband was only out on business trips. Draco mourned for the woman he had loved, but fate had sucked all the hope he had ever had – if there was any – all out of his system.

And he's tired.

And he just can't take it anymore. He _won't _just be standing here and endure this anymore.

He knew what he planned to do was the coward way out, but he simply cannot think of anything else that could save him from all these ordeals that were eating him up bit by bit from inside of him the longer he stayed.

Draco took a last look at his mother, hanging his head in defeat and biting his lips to stifle the sob that tried to escape his throat. He turned on his heels, walked as quietly as he could out of the room, not that he suspected his mother would notice, it was more out of an instinct act, and called a house-elf to bring him some parchments and quill once he reached his room.

He wrote a letter to his mother, saying that he's sorry for everything that had happened and even sorry that he couldn't help to change anything for the better. That he's sorry he had chosen this way to back out and give up everything and sorry that he couldn't be there and be better for her sake. And that he's sorry for saying goodbye to her. In fact, when he was done writing, the parchment was filled with so many _sorry'_s and _forgive me'_s that Draco was becoming disgusted with himself, cursing himself for how pathetic he really is.

But it can't be helped, and he needed to do this to free himself of this devastated feeling that's so strong that made him so sick he felt as though he would throw up.

He rolled up the parchment and called in his personal house-elf again, gave it the letter with the instruction to leave it on his mother's bedside table – he highly doubt she will read it, or even if she did she wouldn't understand it, but this has to be done no matter what.

When this is done, and he was being left alone again in his room, Draco sought something with the intent to turn it into a Portkey. He hasn't decided where he'd go yet, as this had all come up quite sudden, but he was certain it wouldn't be anywhere still in the British continent, nor will it be France or Italy or any of the surrounding countries where he could have the danger of bumping into his friends or have people recognising him.

After a few moments of consideration, Draco had made up his mind. He set the Portkey to transfer him to a random place – Muggle, though, because then no one will know him - in Prague, Czech – because really, as far as he knew, no one he knows lives there, and its Wizarding societies aren't as large as the other countries, too - in ten minutes. He's found a music box that his mother had given to him as his birthday present when he turned eleven and was ready to attend Hogwarts, and chose to make it into a Portkey so as to hold onto something that he and his mother shared.

He fished out his pouch and poured all the Galleons within it out onto his palm and counted them. There wasn't much, but it wasn't a small amount either. Draco don't know how much he would need, considering he has no idea of how it was like over in Czech, but he hoped it was enough because he's not going to pay a visit to his vaults in Gringotts.

After all, his plan is to leave all this behind and start anew somewhere else. And he need to do it before he start to regret about it.

He packed a few outfits and transfigured them into what he knew about Muggles dressing, according to what he had learnt in Muggle Studies, as little as it may be. He shrank the trunk and after putting it into his robe pockets, he picked up the music box and cradled it to his chest, holding it between his hands, sat on the edge of his bed and waited for it to activate.

Mere minutes later, he felt the familiar yet still uncomfortable pull at his navel and he waited a moment longer for the nausea to pass before opening his eyes and saw that he was standing behind a newspaper stand, in some square or tourist place, because it was so filled with people that Draco could barely make out the landscape.

He knew he was in a Muggle area, because that's where he had set the Portkey to take him to. And it was as good as that it's so crowded nobody had noticed that someone had appeared in thin air. He discreetly casted a Disillusion Charm on himself and shredded of his robes, and then transfigured his shirt and trousers under it into a casual T-shirt with a jacket and jeans, his boots into those laced up sneakers Muggles love to wear so much.

He now looked just like an everyday Muggle would look like, if not for his unusually white blond hair and silver gray eyes. But that will just have to do.

Removing the spell, he tucked his wand into his sleeve and rounded the newspaper stand to the front to ask the stand keeper directions to the nearest hotel. Using the time length of the exchange to peer behind the man to see the drawer with obvious Czech currency coins and notes, he silently casted a spell, the tip of his wand under his arm pointed towards the jacket pocket where he'd kept the Galleons with him, changing them into the same money he had seen. There was a evident heaviness to that particular pocket after the spell ended, indicating there was probably indeed quite a lot of cash.

Draco then used those transfigured cash and bought a travel guidebook from the stand, for directions. Then, with the aid from the guidebook, he proceeded on to the journey to this nearest hotel that the stand manager had pointed him to.

He found it after a few misdirection that was caused by wrong reading of the map, and nearly gone passed it because he was too busy staring at the map than to where he's going. Looking up to the building, Draco thought that it was not as fancy as he expected it to be, but for someone who was clueless to Muggle standards, he wouldn't know the difference. And besides, Draco did not come all the way here for the luxury; he'd had plenty of that at the Manor.

Checking into a room and after inserting that card thing into the slot beside the door to the room, and cautiously turned the handle, surprised and relieved both at the same time when the door opened, Draco slipped inside and closed the door almost immediately.

He stood there at the entrance way with his back to the door for a moment, breathing in and out slowly as though calming his rapidly beating heart. It was until then that he really realised what he was about to do, and there was really no turning back. He thought about his mother and her living like some walking dead in their empty home with an equally empty soul, his resolution all but came back with full force again and he found himself calmed down almost immediately.

He moved further into the room and sat onto the bed, took out his shrank trunk and restored it to its original size. Placing the trunk against the wall beside the end of the bed, he looked about the room. It's not even the size of his bathroom, but that's all right, as he reminded himself again what he had came here for. He walked over to the bedside table and found some writing materials and a thin stick thing that, after he scribbled the sharper end to the materials, he found that it works as a quill. He then wrote down his name on the table, with the intent to not forget this even though he was really leaving everything behind.

He placed the music box onto the table as well before he sat back onto the bed again, and took out his wand.

Sucking in a deep breath, he lifted it up and ever so slowly pointed the tip to his temple.

Another deep breath.

He took one last look at the music box, and felt his heart ached and tears started to swell in his eyes. Closing his eyes to prevent the drops before they even dared to come down, Draco poked his wand into his temple, rather sharply, too.

This is it. He is about to say goodbye to his twenty years of life.

Draco doesn't regret it. Draco can't regret it. Draco _won't_ be able to regret it anyway.

Because after this, he won't remember a thing.

Except his name.

He said his apologies to his mother one last time in his heart, and then, out loud, he said.

"_Oblivate_."


End file.
